Silence is the Altar of Spirit

My first visit to Twenty-Nine Palms [Paramhansa Yogananda’s desert retreat in California] was for a weekend. We visited Master at his place. My first recollection of him on that occasion isn’t so much of the things he said, as of what he didn’t say. I didn’t know it at the time, but he placed great importance on silence. Disciples working around him were permitted to speak only when necessary. “Silence,” he said, “is the altar of Spirit.”

Master was seated out of doors by the garage; Bernard and I were standing nearby. Master asked Bernard to go into the house and fetch something. Suddenly, for the first time since my acceptance as a disciple, I found myself alone with my Guru. It seemed an opportunity not to be missed: a chance to learn something — anything! Master, evidently, didn’t see it in the same light. He made no move to speak. Finally I decided I’d better “break the ice.”

I had learned from Bernard how to commune inwardly with Aum, the Cosmic Sound, which manifests itself to the yogi in deep meditation. “Sir,” I inquired, “what does Aum sound like?”

Master gave a prolonged “Mmmmmmmmmm.” He then reverted comfortably to silence. To me, alas, his silence was anything but comfortable.

“How does one hear it?” I persisted, though I already knew the technique.

This time Master didn’t even bother to answer, but simply assumed the prescribed position. After holding it briefly, he returned his hands silently to his lap.

Some months later I told him I was having trouble calming my breath in meditation. “That,” he replied, “is because you used to talk a lot. The influence has carried over. Well,” he added consolingly, “you were happy in that.”

Silence is the altar of Spirit. As I grew into my new way of life, I began to value this maxim.

The desire for equality with others is a delusion; we are equal only in the fact that we are all children of God. Life, otherwise, is like a ladder.

The lower animals are helped upward in their evolution by association with human beings.

Relatively unaware people are helped upward by serving those who are more highly evolved. The caste system in India originally recognized these realities: It wasn’t hereditary, and was never intended to be suppressive. It simply indicated the right direction for humanity to develop—from body-bound (kayastha) to freedom from ego-bondage.

“One moment in the company of a saint,” it has been said, “will be your raft over the ocean of delusion.” The company of persons more highly evolved than oneself can be uplifting. In the case of the devotee who seeks God, saints are the best company. And best of all is it to be guided by a true guru.